Our Oregon football program had a stunning performance on New Year’s Day, blanking Texas Tech’s high-flying offense 23-0. The Ducks did struggle with what I believe to be the best front seven in the College Football Playoff, but they made enough plays to polish off a complete demolition of the Big 12’s best. Now, Oregon looks ahead to next Friday ...

Oregon Football: 3 Things We Learned in the Orange Bowl

Alex, solid article about the 3 things we learned about OBD's from the TT game.

IMHO, the Ducks are underestimated because they have shown this season thru 14 games that you don't know what they will bring each game.

Some games, good defenses slowed down or confused the Duck O. Other games the Duck D would go stretches where they couldn't get off the field.

An outside onlooker might ask; how could a great team need a last second field goal to beat Iowa, or how could the Ducks only score 21 points against Whisky.? Or play so poorly, at home against Indiana?

Remember, only the SEC teams were allowed close wins or even losses to rise in the rankings......

To this Duck fan, a homer fan, I never saw OBD's take a good or great team to the woodshed for a thrashing. Except yesterday! The Defense was so dominant and the Offense fought thru a great front 7 and their own self-inflicted wounds to win. That was as big a win as any Duck team has ever had.

Indiana will not be so forgiving of the careless and sloppy play from OBD's offense. It may take 40 or more points to beat IU even with another spectacular effort from the Duck D.

TT was a very good team but IU is a great team. Proof, they carry the Duck scalp on their belt.

Both teams have improved since the first game. However, the Ducks must play clean, mistake free football in all 3 phases to win.

Or OBD's D can just pitch another shutout......

This Duck fan is proud of the staff and players for overcoming that loss, winning 8 games in a row and getting their shot at redemption.

Go Ducks! It is all out their for the taking.

The narrative from opposing message boards is that Tech was awful and shouldn’t have been in the playoffs. There are also many Duck fans who want Stein to leave for Kentucky already and just hand the job off to DM.

Cignetti isn’t going to buy into any of this. His team will play just as hard as they did in the Rose Bowl. I hope this is a game where Oregon can excel on both sides of the ball and on special teams.

25-2, 1-7, no need to Google him, he wins!

The most amazing turnaround in CFB history continued yesterday with Indiana's Rose Bowl pasting of Alabama. Indiana is led by a guy who coached under Nick Saban and knows, as well as anyone, that Nick has left the building.

Only one team has been able to overcome the Rip Van Winkle long winter's playoff nap: the Hoosiers. Kirby Smart is 0-2. Ryan Day 0-1.

Massey Computer Rankings through 1/1/26 -

https://masseyratings.com/cf/fbs/ratings

Massey has nine B1G and nine SEC teams in the top 25.

2nd-ranked Oregon's strength of schedule (SOS) is ranked fifth, expected to be the 3rd most difficult SOS after the Peach Bowl game vs. Indiana.

8th-ranked Texas Tech finishes with the nation's 45th most difficult SOS.

Massey's rankings are well respected and cannot possibly differ that much from the PO Committee's super-secret, you need a decoder ring to figure them out, computer rankings.

Texas Tech's loss came at the end of 31st-ranked ASU's pitchfork. OBD lost to No. 1 Indiana. Why wasn't Oregon wearing the home unis in yesterday's game? The Eye Test.

Objectively looking at the competition played, maybe, you know, using metrics at hand, 1-loss Oregon and not 1-loss Texas Tech, should have been the 4th seed.

Thank goodness this didn't happen, and the defense that gave up 500 yards against the Sun Belt champion shut out the B12 champion.

Mike West called it. Oregon's roster talent advantage showed up. The Red Raiders bought one half of the equation, but even with your defense playing well, you have to score a point or two.

Call out Will Stein if you so choose, but Week 6 Dante does not find a way to win yesterday's game. Will the OBD O be ready Friday night, going against the best D in CFB? Going against, arguably, the best coach in CFB?

Before the Orange Bowl game, Oregon under Dan Lanning was 25-2 when the Ducks rushed for 100-plus yards. Yesterday, OBD rushed for a net 64 yards and won the ball game. Won with many new starters, including true freshmen.

The talent accumulation is beginning to show. Will it manifest for two more games?

HOSE THE HOOSIERS!

The OL play was surprising. Like they had trouble waking up. Pregnon alone killed 2 drives in the 1st quarter with "what were you thinking?" missed blocks. He's literally the #1 guard in the country and he killed 2 drives.

Our center who is a Remington finalist screwed up multiple snap, one that took us out of field goal range and another that blew the timing of a play for a loss of yards. He also blew quite a few blocks.

Obviously there were other OL struggles just due to TTU 's amazing front seven who is likely the best front 7 in the country, better than Indiana and Iowa at least by a clear amount.

Looking back at the NW game that was also at 9am we weren't as crisp. Fans that know better say the Orange Bowl at noon local time was a disaster. For those that remember, the Orange Bowl used to be the last bowl on New Year's day late into the evening with a real party like atmosphere.

I think we've learned that the current playoff format does really suck, in multiple ways, and that our players can really struggle with early games (who knows that maybe it really affected Morton to play at 11am), and that our ceiling in each phase is as high as anybody, we are 14 games into the season and STILL haven't put it all together for a complete game.

Edited 5 hours ago5 hr by Solar

64 yards rushing. Yes, TT has a top defense, which they proved. Mostly against the run. So why did we send our backs into the middle of their line over and over with so little to show for it? And did any of our passes behind the line of scrimmage ever pay off. Or did most lose yardage? We can also be thankful Tech's QB couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. Their offense was highly overrated.

But our play calling needs to be better.

Indiana has a top defense, too. But they also come with an offense that can run and pass very effectively.

This will be the Ducks' supreme test.

I'm just glad we get a 2nd shot at Indiana. Because the winner will take it all.

I'm confident DL is going to come up with a theme that hyper focuses this team for these next two opportunities and rivet's it to its destiny of a national championship. Perhaps something like "Avengers: Endgame" in which the heroes (OBD) seek to retrieve the Stones from the past to reverse Thanos's (Whosiers) present actions, leading to an epic battle where they defeat their opponents and rewrite history. This team's best games are yet to be played!

Go Ducks!

What do these 4 coaches have in common?

2007-11 – Cignetti - Indiana

2015 - Lanning - Oregon

2018-22 - Golding - Ole Miss

2013-16 – Cristobal - Miami

 

Clue:

2007-23 - Saban - Alabama

Great article Alex, and you made a superb observation of how this team can win different type games. A shoot-out, or a defensive rock-fight, and that team strength is one I did not see coming on.

That defensive performance is something NOBODY saw coming, and the confidence it builds going forward is huge.

I'm somewhat surprised by the love being shown to Miami's defense.

In the Big Ten champ game, the Indiana defense shut down the Ohio State offense in the same manner as Miami in the Cotton Bowl. In the Rose Bowl game, Mendoza threw fewer incompletions than he did touchdowns against a Bama defense that carried the Tide all season long.

Even with the game in Miami, if Indiana can defeat OBD for a second time this season, I think Indiana, with a defense as good or better than Miami's and with more weapons on offense than Ohio State, including a better O-line, will defeat Miami by two or more scores.

It's close in team defense with Indiana, 2nd ranked, and Miami, 4th. Massey SOS has Indiana 11th and Miami 24th, and this is with Miami getting a boost from playing Notre Dame.

In Massey's top 25, one ACC team, No. 7 Miami, is ranked. Nine B1G, nine SEC, Notre Dame at No. 6, and five B12 teams are ranked in the top 25.

I think Indiana is the better-coached football team.

I hope we do not have the opportunity to see if I'm correct. In Miami on 1/19, I want to see OBD playing Ole Miss. If OBD wins it all without a win over an SEC foe, Paul et al will call it an aberration.

“The transfer portal opening today is my only worry for prep this upcoming week. I hope Tosh and Will can stay on the same page with Dan, keeping this squad locked in for their last two games of the year.”

===============

I wonder if there is a bit less work for our coaches than there would be for other opponents since we’ve already faced Indiana once? I’m sure that the Oregon coaches looked back on that first game and thought what they would have done differently (e.g., stick with the ground game). Now they are going to have their opportunity.

Coach Lanning, Stein and Tupoi were out coached by Indiana’s more experienced coaching staff last game, as they were in last year’s Rose Bowl game. Let’s hope they have the best games of their careers because Indiana might be the best team remaining in the playoffs.

Edited 1 hour ago1 hr by OregonDucks

4 hours ago, tee duke said:

64 yards rushing. Yes, TT has a top defense, which they proved. Mostly against the run. So why did we send our backs into the middle of their line over and over with so little to show for it? And did any of our passes behind the line of scrimmage ever pay off. Or did most lose yardage? We can also be thankful Tech's QB couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. Their offense was highly overrated.

But our play calling needs to be better.

Indiana has a top defense, too. But they also come with an offense that can run and pass very effectively.

This will be the Ducks' supreme test.

I'm just glad we get a 2nd shot at Indiana. Because the winner will take it all.

The middle of the TT defensive line is where they were the weakest.

The problem I think stemmed from Poncho having a bad day. The middle run blocking just wasn't there like it had been. The edges were always going to be difficult to attack as TT has fantastic edges. Bailey is a first round draft pick for sure.

The run game never got in rhythm and there was never really a hot hand but Whittington wasn't the answer for sure as he seemed the least effective.

9 minutes ago, OregonDucks said:

Coach Lanning, Stein and Tupoi were out coached by Indiana’s more experienced coaching staff last game, as they were in last year’s Rose Bowl game. Let’s hope they have the best games of their careers because Indiana might be the best team remaining in the playoffs.

Indiana is a unicorn as they have defied all established logic. They were given a gift in a game between either Alabama or Oklahoma as both are awful in different ways and they pulled Bama. I'm not sure if Simpson in the second half would have made a difference for the Bama offense because of how bad that offensive line is and their lack of run game but it didnt hurt to make sure it was a lopsided score.

Oregon's offensive line needs to deflect that pass rush and establish a run game at around 4-5 yards per carry to win.

Oddly enough in the previous game Davison was averaging about 5 yards per carry.

I think in the second half against TT Lanning wanted to get the run game going more and focused more on it. Abandoning the run against Indiana was one of the things that lost that game. There were others but feeding Davison will be key.